Cat 5e 10/100/1000 Mb/s Category 5e cabling provides a minimum of 100 Hz bandwidth. Category 5e generally provides the best price for performance however future proofing to Cat6 might be a better choice as in most circumstances it doesn’t usually cost that much more.
Cat 6 10/100/1000/Mb/s-10Gb/s Category 6 cabling provides a minimum of 250 Hz bandwidth, and supports 10/100/1000 Mb/s use with up to 100 meter cables lengths. It will even support 10Gb/s on shorter links. This is the best compromise between performance and cost.
Cat6a10/100/1000 Mb/s-10Gb/s Category 6a or Augmented Category 6 has a minimum of 500 Hz bandwidth. It is the latest standard to be ratified and can support 10 Gb/s on cable lengths on up to 100 meters. Currently this is mainly used within the data centre industry and on bandwidth hungry applications.
Cat710/100/100 Mb/s-10/100 Gb/s Category 7 is a future cabling standard and has a proposed minimum bandwidth of 700 Hz this has yet to be ratified by the governing body. This should allow you support up to 40 /100 Gb/s on cable lengths on up to 100 meters. Expected availability is in 2013. Although some manufactures are already offering their own solutions.
